Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles More deer have been killed with the xxxx than any other cartridge.

30-06.

I have heard that refrain God only knows how many times. The most obvious question is how that assumption has been transformed into fact.

At the turn of the 20th century, the USA & Canada were full up with .303 British and .30-40 Krag rifles. God only knows how many big game animals gave up their ghosts to these cartridges.

After Springfields flooded the market, I'd tend to think that they felled a whole lot of North American big game. And we can't forget that '06 ammo was extremely inexpensive. But that's not to imply that the Model 94 didn't put a whole lot of venison in freezers.

It's got to be the 30-30. It's the most prolific rifle EVER produced in the good ole USA. Interesting enough, the only rifle that outnumbers the 30-30 Lever Action is the AK-47 in total rifle production.
More 30-30 rifles have been produced over the years than all brands of Commercial 30.06's combined!
Of course, this does NOT include A3-03's, M1 Garand's and 1917 Enfields produced for the US Military. Look it up.... If you don't believe me.

I'd suggest a toss up between the 30.30 and 30.06. In Canada, I'd also add the .303 Brit into the mix.

I'd seriously doubt the .270 would come anywhere close to the numbers these 3 calibers have racked up since way back when.

I doubt it would be in the Top 3, maybe not even the Top 5.

.22 LR? Doubtful as well.

My money goes on either the .30-30 or the .30-06, no question about it. Like its been posted, there has probably been more deer killed in the last 50 years than the previous 150. Take the middle Georgia area, my father said he was a almost in his teens before he remembered even seeing a deer, and now you can kill 12 per year.

I've heard stories from my grandfather's time of market hunters getting into winter deer yards and taking 40-50 per day. The calibers: 38-40, 44-40 and 30-30 if they had a "new" rifle. the 44-40 ruled deer cartridges for a long time - may have taken more deer than any modern cartridge.

I think the muzzle loading rifle as well. They started early and went up to about ten years after the civil war and beyond. Everyone shot deer in those days and there were market hunters for the cities. Probably not even close compared to smokeless powder guns.

Let's not leave out wolf and coyote.

More deer and also enemy killed by Americans by the King of them all. [THE 30-06 SPRINGFIELD[b]

did you revise this thread due to divine revelation or just dumbassery?

Gotta be the arrow....since the cavemen upgraded from spears.

The 30-06 is not only the US standard but has become the world standard as well. That’s got to be it.

That’s the point. As a game warden you were t supposed to see the ones killed with a .22LR.

Likely 22lr or f-150

Motor Vehicles???

Lots of opinion, but I don't think anyone really knows.

Don’t know how they took it back to 1450 but, the chart pretty accurately depicts the decline in whitetails starting in 1700, blacktails and Muley started catching up about 1800. It was all but decimated between 1850 and 1890.
So when the 30.30 was introduced in 1894-95 there weren’t too many left, and numbers didn’t significantly rebound until about 1930 I would say none of em can claim the honor.

According to the "Most game killed" thread last year:

(1) .30-06 Sprg
(2) .270 Win
(3) .308 Win
(4) 7mm-08
(5) .30-30

Total of 38 different cartridges mentioned in that thread. The .30-06 and .270 combined accounted for 40% of the total responses.

My bet is on dumbassery.

I can’t imagine that the 7mm-08 would be ahead of the .30-30. A buddy if mine runs a deer processing business and he once told me how surprised he is at how many folks still use the .30-30.